


--of the destined and damned

by foundCarcosa



Category: Carnivale
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 17:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5833630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a way, they were made for each other -- not because of an arcane destiny, but because they were human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	--of the destined and damned

**_his dreams are the dreams of the destined and damned {dreams of hellfire and brimstone, of ink-black eyes and_ charyou tree} _but when he reaches for her, he reaches for her as if none of this existed at all_**

when she spoke prophetic words over the care-worn cards he felt his palms itch and his fingers clench, wanting to flip the flimsy table over, wanting nothing more than to run, run to where this damned destined life of his could not find him–-

{ _in a dusky field a girl older than her years who had just been healed watches him run after the caravan and leap into the flatbed of the truck and thinks, 'i thought i would meet god when i died, but there he goes, and i’m still alive–-'_ }

divinity worms itself into the most unwilling of men and pushes outward, stretching the boundaries of mind and body, and it hurts, hurts more than anything, more than the harsh dry sun on his burnt body, more than the dry-ice burn of henry scudder’s name upon his brain, more than the usher’s boiling black eyes in the depths of dreams, more than sofie’s sad drawn face

but when he reaches for her, he reaches as if none of this existed at all, as if his body were his and his alone and not a vessel for avenging might and holy fire, as if his hands were simply hands and not conduits of savage and hungry healing, as if he could truly lose himself in flesh and passion and sofie’s breathless desperate pleas

{ _perhaps in the breadth of time that goes conspicuously unrecorded in holy texts, jesus attempted much the same –- to lose himself in flesh and passion and mary magdalene’s breathless desperate pleas, to be called upon by a power other than god’s, to rut himself so deep into the basest parts of human existence that he could rut the scalding inexorable divinity right out of him_

 _to be forsaken would have been a blessing then–-_ }

when he reaches for her, she sees everything he is as clear as a desert morning, the prophet in his house, the boy in his shell–-

but she sees the fumbling desire of a young lonely man and reaches for that, reaches for it with the gladness of a young lonely woman whose own damned destiny bears down upon her like a nebraska storm in the midst of an oppressive summer day

{ _“every prophet in their house”, the house of their god(dess), and within the sacred shelter of sofie’s yielding body, ben hawkins gives thanks_ }


End file.
